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Yes, not to mention when you want to share the link in DDG you share the original link directly but in Google you'd share the redirector link.

Given Google's scale they probably don't care about the long tail of technical users such as us.

I tried this just now and this particularly seems to be a problem on Firefox.

On iOS (WebKit) and Chrome, Google’s search results can be copied just fine - there’s no redirector because Google uses hyperlink link auditing (<a href="..." ping="...">).

Firefox does support ping but disables it by default for privacy reasons.

Which is good, I guess, because now the link tracking is more apparent, but it does still happen and leads to a worse UX for the user.

Especially useful in the Images search to share the link or find the original image directly.

I'd also noticed this behaviour but never really thought about why. I've been using DDG full time for a couple of years now and I've been very happy with it.